F1 Espionage: McLaren/Ferrari

[l8braker]

Surprised this has not been posted yet. Unreal stuff.



McLaren suspect is Mike Coughlan

By Jonathan Noble and Biranit Goren Tuesday, July 3rd 2007, 18:44 GMT


Mike Coughlan, McLaren's chief designer, is the senior engineer suspected of espionage against Ferrari, autosport.com has learned.

The 48-year-old Briton is suspected of unlawfully obtaining technical material belonging to Ferrari in collaboration with Ferrari's Nigel Stepney.

In a search conducted by the police at Coughlan's house today, documents allegedly belonging to Ferrari were found, leading McLaren to suspend him while Ferrari said they reserve the right to pursue further legal action.

Coughlan joined McLaren as chief designer in August 2002 after four years with the Arrows F1 team. His initial role there was chief designer, and in the last couple of years at Arrows he was promoted to technical director.

Coughlan was also head of the design office at Benetton in 1991, and later in his career worked for the Ferrari Design and Development office in England. He also worked as race engineer at Tyrrell in the mid-1990s.

[Xamim]

Im intrested on how this will all turn out. Sounds like this Coughlan guy will get raped in the ass by Ferrari.

[Supa Dexta]

wouldnt it be "the 48 yr old brit"

isn't that the name they use..

the 48 yr old britonian, britonite, haha

[l8braker]

Timeline:

http://www.planet-f1.com/story/0,18954,3261_2466749,00.html

Jesus christ,

`Police raid found Ferrari documents at McLaren designer`s home`
Wednesday 4th July 2007" - Planet f1.com
http://www.planet-f1.com/story/0,18954,3213_2470912,00.html

""Incriminating evidence discovered during a police raid on the Surrey home of Mike Coughlan is reported to have resulted in the McLaren designer's suspension and sparked the most sensational case of F1 espionage in recent memory.

Having already launched legal proceedings against Nigel Stepney, the team's British-born mechanic, after accusing him of sabotaging their own cars, Ferrari applied for a search warrant through the British courts, claiming that 'a large amount of technical information' had been stolen from their Maranello factory.

The raid on Coughlan's home, near to McLaren's Woking base, is reported by The Times to have uncovered 'documents belonging to Ferrari'.


"We have proof that Stepney had been supplying technical information to a McLaren employee," a Ferrari spokesman said.

"A search was carried out of the (McLaren) engineer's house, where we found this information," he added.

"This is a very serious situation. We are talking about a lot of information being given to a prominent McLaren engineer. We are not talking about rumours or speculation."

In a separate statement, McLaren confirmed that they had suspended 'a senior member of its technical organisation' after learning 'that this individual had personally received a package of technical information from a Ferrari employee at the end of April'."
.

[Revhard]

Love it.
Why when they were doing fine in the points?
Or is this why?????

[iceburns288]

Stepney apparently also made an offer to Honda, but they turned him down. Way to go, Coughlan :p. I also heard Coughlan had more than 700 Ferrari documents. Interesting.

[/////AMG]

:rofl: love the drama

[Alpine Autowerks]

inter-team spying is standard operating procedure in racing...leave to the pussies at FIAT to go crying to the police and take to the courts...babies probably ran it by the in-house layers for ideas when Bernie laughed so hard that he sprayed espresso out of his nose, stained his silk shirt...got mad and hung up.

[Ripper]

Stepny's story, interesting read...

Clicky (http://www.autosport.com/news/report.php/id/60613)

[iceburns288]

Apparently, Stepney told Coughlan about Ferrari's moving floor. McLaren is fucked in this aspect. There is no amount of spying McLaren could have done to discover that technology.
Short of this, of course :p.

[Alpine Autowerks]

the effect of the moving floor could have been uncovered by the same acoustical tools used to pick out some of ferrari's previous cheating; ie the moving front and the rear wings